


A Force Unseen

by triedunture



Category: X-Men: First Class - Fandom
Genre: Central Park, Exhibitionism, M/M, Power Play, Public Sex, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-01
Updated: 2011-10-01
Packaged: 2017-10-24 06:34:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/260201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triedunture/pseuds/triedunture
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for the Kink_Bingo prompt "public humiliation." Set during Charles & Erik's bromantical whirlwind recruitment tour. While traveling to find new mutants to join the team, Erik and Charles become closer and closer until Erik pushes Charles too far.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Force Unseen

_**First Class Fic: A Force Unseen**_  
Title: A Force Unseen  
Pairing: Erik/Charles (Magneto/Professor X)  
Fandom: X-Men: First Class  
Rating: R  
Length: 5,000 words  
Warnings: exhibitionism, oral sex, dubcon/mindfucks, OC character death, OC character suicide, possible triggery homosexual self-loathing

Summary: for the Kink_Bingo prompt "public humiliation." Set during Charles & Erik's bromantical whirlwind recruitment tour. While traveling to find new mutants to join the team, Erik and Charles become closer and closer until Erik pushes Charles too far.

  
XXXXXX  
  
"Bring an umbrella. It's supposed to rain," Erik says in their hotel room in Dallas. He's juggling a pair of cufflinks through the air with his power, lounging fully dressed on his fully made bed.

"No, it won't," Charlies replies in an absent-minded way. He's rushing around, peeking under the two beds while knotting his tie. "Have you seen my cufflinks?"

Erik doesn't answer; he's not listening. He's watching the cufflinks spin around in the air above him, his fingers twisting this way and that to guide them. They stumble through the air and land in Erik's hand, still unseen by his friend. "I need to devote more time to honing my power." He rolls the cufflinks in his palm like coins. "All of us do. What do you think, Charles?" He looks up, watching Charles tear through an open suitcase. "Or were you born a perfect telepath?"

Now it's Charles who isn't listening. "We can't visit Miss Ramis with my cuffs flapping about. You don't approach a woman who can see through walls while you're half-dressed." Charles stands in the middle of the room, spinning around in a circle to look for his missing tchotchkes, his hand in his hair. "Although, if she can see through walls perhaps she can see through clothes, and she won't even notice."

"Miss Ramis is sixty-three years old," Erik reminds him. "You don't want her staring through your clothes." He sighs and examines the jeweled bits of silver in his hand. "If you use your gift, you might be able to create the illusion of cufflinks, which would be just as effective as actually wearing them."

Charles' slim white fingers pluck the cufflinks from Erik's palm, and Erik looks up to find Charles looking stern and disapproving.

"That would be dishonest," he drawls, pinning his cuffs into place, "much like hiding someone's cufflinks from them."

Erik doesn't even attempt to look contrite. When they find Miss Ramis, she makes them coffee and is very gracious, but no, thank you, young man, she is not interested in getting involved with any secret projects.

XXXXXX

"You have told lies before, yes?" Erik asks as they walk down the San Francisco waterfront. The city is chilly, full of rolling fog. Their words make icy puffs above the rise of their thick scarves.

"Of course," Charles says. "Whether to preserve peace between friends, or to spare the feelings of others. Or out of embarrassment." Of what, Erik does not ask.

"And your gift, which can be used to obfuscate, you would never use it in such a manner? Not even in those perfectly reasonable situations?" Erik's voice is pitched high. He is honestly curious.

"You're forgetting; anyone can tell a lie. We're all on an even playing field there. But not everyone has the power I have." Charles pauses on the street corner and puts his fingertips to his temple, his eyes drifting closed for a moment. They open and he nods to the south. "This way."

"You and I, we are on an even playing field," Erik continues as Charles leads them down an alleyway. "Perhaps you would feel more comfortable practicing your skills on me." He holds his arms too stiffly at his sides, a studied look of nonchalance where there is none.

Charles looks over his shoulder at him, his eyebrows knotted. "What? No, Erik, it's not—" He can't seem to finish his thought aloud satisfactorily, so he lets it hang in the air like breath.

Erik ducks his head, looks off into the fog, his eyes sharp as the line of his ticking jaw. "I see. Fine," he says, clipped. He brushes past Charles. "Let's just find this boy who can split himself in two, hm?"

"Erik." Charles' hand rests lightly on his shoulder, pale against the deep blue wool of his coat. "Please don't be angry."

Erik looks down at Charles' hand, its fine-boned form, the small band of silver at the base of his middle finger. A gift from Raven, perhaps. Erik reaches out with just an iota of his power and lifts that ring, forcing Charles' hand off his shoulder. He registers the look of hurt in Charles' eyes, but he tries not to dwell on it.

"It's not that I don't trust you," Charles continues. He balls his hand into a fist at his side. "I just don't want to cause you any pain." A man in a heavy overcoat passes them on the sidewalk, and Charles watches him warily. He thinks into Erik's mind, as clear as a bell, _You've endured so much already._

"I will endure more," Erik snarls, "when we come up against an enemy we're not prepared for."

They do not speak as they continue searching for the boy. They find him playing catch with himself behind an abandoned building. He's much too young, but Charles talks to him for a short time and gives him his card and says, "You may want to call me some day, James."

The boy nods. Both of them.

XXXXXX

While back at the base in DC, Erik throws questioning glances and highly raised eyebrows in Charles' direction every time Hank asks, "But what can you do when you read someone's mind? Can you make them forget who they are? Can you make them do whatever you want? For how long?"

Charles catches the questions and Erik's looks and returns them with a gentle, "It's difficult to say. I hope it never comes to that." They leave DC for the Midwest with a promise to be back soon.

They come to a town called, presciently, Burden, Kansas. They walk the empty streets. Charles can feel that heavy stare of Erik's, weighing like lead on a spot between his shoulder blades. He stops on the whitewashed porch steps of a creaking house on North Main. Inside is a man named Luke Fairchild who, if Charles is correct, can foresee the future. Not the very distant future, but still. A very remarkable skill.

Charles look at Erik, their heights evenly matched with Charles on the stair. "What's been bothering you?" he asks, his eyes squinted against the bright sun.

"Oh, have you finally decided to read my mind?" Erik returns. He sounds lofty, flippant even, but Charles takes in the stiff lines of his arms at his sides and that darkness in his eyes and says, "I don't need to."

He reaches out a hand, and it's meant to be extended in friendship. Its target is Erik's knotted shoulder, but it's frozen in mid-air between them, held in place by an unseen force. Charles tugs against it, but his damnable cufflinks keep his hand suspended there. Then, slowly, like a flip-book moving through its pages too leisurely, Charles watches his hand be pulled up, up, out, until the very tips of his trembling fingers are brushing Erik's lips.

"So you say," Erik murmurs, his dry lips moving against Charles' fingers like paper shuffling into place.

And, oh, _this_ is why Charles doesn't go digging for things he's not ready to find. He swallows, his throat parched. Watches his hand there in front of his eyes, unable to tear it away.

The door opens and Fairchild steps out onto the porch with two glasses of ice water. Erik flinches, and Charles' hand falls back into place at his side just as he turns around.

Mr. Fairchild holds up the glasses, one in each hand. "I been expecting you," he says. They have a nice, civil talk on the porch swing, but it's clear Mr. Fairchild's gift has allowed him to see more than he's willing to impart, and he declines their offer with an uncomfortable shrug. "Not my fight," he murmurs, glancing uneasily at his boots, unable to meet their eyes.

XXXXXX

They stop in a shaggy sort of motel at the edge of the Florida everglades for the night. They've been driving since dawn, trying to track down a runaway girl whose arms can turn into knives. She won't stop moving and Charles is having difficulty pin-pointing her location. Her searing, deep-seated depression is not helping matters. It's giving him a pounding headache just to reach out to her.

Erik pulls the rented Volkswagen into the crumbling parking lot, cuts the engine, lets the growling sounds of frogs and insects take over in the quiet. He looks over at Charles, leaning against the passenger window, his temple pressed up against the cool glass.

"Rest?" Erik says almost gently.

They do not talk about Kansas. They never will. Charles can't shake the thought of Kansas from the back of his mind, however, and that is also contributing to his headache.

He rights himself. "Yes."

Erik retrieves a room key from the half-asleep clerk and together they walk down the open-air corridor under the flickering neon vacancy sign.

Charles is wearing a shirt with snap buttons, a casual military style Raven has been pushing him toward. She says it makes him appear more leader-like. His numb fingers fumble at the unfamiliar fasteners, the metal cool under his over-heated fingertips. He's about to give it up as a bad job, flop into the creased and nicotine-stained bed without undressing. But the buttons start unsnapping, one by one. Slowly. So slowly that he almost thinks the first two were of his own undoing.

He looks up and sees Erik at the sink, running a damp and dubious-looking wash cloth over the back of his neck. Their eyes meet in the mirror.

"I'm only trying to help, Charles," Erik says quietly.

"Don't." Charles' voice is brittle like a gunshot within the close walls.

"So stop me." Erik stands there, leaning against the flecked Formica counter top, his eyes not leaving the reflection of Charles' gaze.

Charles does nothing. Another button snaps open. Cool air against the bottom of his rib cage.

They stay that way, frozen, for what seems like long moments. Across the parking lot, a radio plays something low and brassy. A bird calls from the tall bushes: who, _who_ , who who who?

Charles opens his mouth to say something, he's not sure what, and his tongue is heavy and dry. His throat works, but before any sound can step forward, a searing pain shoots through his mind. He crumbles to one knee on the pea-green carpet. Erik is there at his shoulder, saying his name over and over. Demanding an explanation. The room spins.

"The girl," Charles grits between his teeth. He can see her as clearly as he saw Erik in that mirror. Her brain is red with certainty. "We need to go."

They drive as fast as Erik dares, racing down the gravel back road with great jutters and pops of the wheels. Charles curls himself into the passenger seat, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, pointing the way.

"What's happening?" Erik asks as he jerks the wheel to the left as he's told. "Is she hurting you?"

He's concentrating on the girl, trying to reach her. Her name is Maria. "She's going to kill herself," Charles manages. She's already tied the noose.

 _Maria, please wait. You don't have to do this._ His thoughts are panicked, though he tries to project a helpful calm. They are so close to her, but her mind is so far away.

Maria barely hears him. Her grief is like a thick tar covering everything about her. She does not seem surprised at the voice in her head. _Are you God?_ she asks. Her hands shake as she positions a chair in the center of the floor.

 _No, I'm—we are—gifted people. Like you. It's going to be all right. We're coming to you right now if you can just wait one—_

Her answer comes, not in words, but images and memories, a torrent of pain and despair that chokes the air from Charles' lungs. Maria is not coherent, but she is clear: _Nothing is ever going to be all right._

Charles feels it when it happens. He cries out, or at least, that's what Erik tells him later; Charles won't remember the next few horrible minutes, when his mind is bound up in the girl who dangles at the end of a rope. It's a blur of Erik shouting in rough Germanic bursts, tires squealing in the dust, stumbling out into the night air. The small barn, bleached to brown in the middle of the waist-high weeds. A shed, really. The dirt floor. Scrambling to find a knife, a saw edge, something to get her down, because I have to try, maybe it's not too late, maybe I can still—

And then Erik. His arms around Charles. The whine of insects. Blinking his eyes open to find them on their knees in the barn's doorway. Erik's fingers stroking through his hair. Under the sound of night crickets, the rope creaks horribly.

"You can't save them all," Erik whispers over and over. "You can't save them all."

He slowly comes back to himself. He's surprised to find his shirt is still half-unbuttoned. The girl hangs from a rafter, as still as a bundle of dried flowers. Erik tells him to stay there, let him take care of it. "For once" is implied but not spoken.

Charles mentions the police in a bleary sort of manner. Erik just shakes his head. Sends his pocketknife into the air and gets the girl down. Finds an old cast iron foot locker in a dark corner. Sends the girl below, burying her anonymously in the soft dirt. Charles almost protests, but then remembers there is no one to claim the body. No one willing, at any rate.

"She was so absolutely alone," Charles says, watching the makeshift coffin disappear into the ground.

"Not at the end," Erik maintains. Charles is not so sure.

You can't save them all.

Charles thinks he would be content to save just one.

XXXXXX

Three weeks later, and they are in New York with the aim to find more than a dozen mutants who live within the five boroughs. If only one takes them up on their offer, it will have been a success, for they're all extremely talented. It is Erik who suggests they take a walk outdoors before continuing with their search.

Central Park is firmly autumnal, and everything is red and orange and changeable. The pond is spotty with fallen leaves, an imperfect mirror in the park's southeastern corner. They skirt it slowly, passing between leering addicts on park benches and foreign nannies with carriages. Erik is wearing his blue coat again, and Charles notices how it settles across his shoulders, perfectly fitted.

"About Florida," Erik begins, and Charles interrupts before he can say anything further.

"I know, I should really apologize," he says, ducking his head. "Falling into hysterics the way I did, it was rather unseemly and not at all helpful. What happened to Maria was tragic, and I suppose I must—I will just have to make peace with the idea that—sometimes, these things happen and if we're to accomplish a fraction of what we hope to achieve, I cannot be so easily rattled." He looks up to gauge Erik's reaction, but can tell nothing from his face.

Erik is silent for about ten footsteps. A small boy races between them, trailing a broken kite.

"I was talking about your shirt buttons," Erik finally says.

"Oh!" Charles' eyes go wide, a huff of almost-laughter on his lips.

"But the girl's death, while a tragedy, was not some random happenstance." Erik stops on the cracked walkway, looking up at the red and yellow leaves overhead. "You make it sound like an accident. But that girl was brutalized, yes? Cast out? Abandoned. She died because of what humans did to her."

It's their old argument, and Charles feels his face flush as he falls back into it, going around again. "They're only frightened of what they don't understand. Given time, they'll come to see—"

"That _girl_ did not have time." Erik stabs a finger at the ground, as if to indicate the various dead.

"I understand your frustration, I do. But we can't change the world overnight."

Erik seems to deflate then. He takes a step closer, his voice pitched low under the bustle of foot traffic around them. "We might have changed it overnight, if only just between us." He brushes the pad of his thumb against the third button on Charles' coat. "That night in Florida—"

"Don't," Charles takes a shaky breath, "say another word." His eyes flash a warning.

Erik regards him, curious, then drops his hand. "I see," he says. "You think you're different enough as it is."

"That's right," Charles says tightly.

"Ridiculous. You're a god compared to them, Charles. You shouldn't have to scrape and bow to what they think is normal." Erik's voice raises, and Charles glances around the crowded park in consternation.

"For god's sake, Erik—"

Erik grabs him by the elbow, hauls him closer so they can speak in whispers. "Tell me you haven't thought about it, tell me I haven't crossed your mind in the night, and I will leave it be." Charles' mouth opens and closes. No sound. "Tell me," Erik insists, pressing closer, his eyes going soft and suddenly unsure.

"I don't have to listen to this," Charles murmurs, his voice a weak thread. He shrugs off Erik's hand and turns away.

He makes it three steps before his body suddenly jerks to a standstill. It feels like he's being held in place by a dozen points of cool metal: the band of his watch, the loop of chain in the back of his coat, his cufflinks, his zipper fly, the filling in his back molar, they are all stuck in place. And he's not going anywhere without them.

"Erik," he growls, though his tooth is killing him, "let me go."

Erik walks back into his field of vision, tall and dark with his hands in his pockets. He is standing very close now, his hand light on Charles' wrist, his lips brushing against his ear. He says, casually, as if they're just two businessmen negotiating the sale of cloth, "Make me."

"Erik," Charles spits, jerking against the magnetic hold. To any of the dozens of onlookers, he may just be shrugging in irritation.

"I wonder," Erik says quietly into his other ear, "if I wanted to kiss you right here, in front of all these people, what you would do. Would you burrow into my brain and flip some switch to stop me? Would you find the part of me that wants you and bury it so deep I'd forget it ever existed?"

Charles shudders, his eyes on the ground. "I'd never destroy a piece of you. Of anyone. It would be cruel beyond imaging."

"But you could, if you wanted to."

Charles shakes his head. "No."

"I suppose we'll see," Erik says, and kisses him firmly on the mouth, right there in front of the drunks and the tourists and the well-dressed typists on lunch breaks. Perhaps Erik half-expects to be stopped, to be made into a kind of blind automaton with a single thought from Charles. But the kiss lingers on and nothing but their need to breathe makes it end.

Erik pulls back, his lips still burning from Charles' kiss, and he looks down into his friend's pale, drawn face. Charles' eyes are closed in what he thinks might be pinched sorrow.

"Charles?" he asks. He looks up and around, but nothing has changed. The park is still brimming with humans shuttling to and fro in their hats and coats. No one, it seems, has even noticed them.

"They can't see us," Charles whispers. "I—I'm making it so they can't see us."

Erik realizes his eyes are squeezed shut in concentration. He spins around, marveling at the sheer number of people Charles is currently controlling with his mind. There must be fifty, a hundred humans within seeing distance and every single one of them is an unwitting participant in their little scheme.

"That is so," he breathes, "absolutely amazing."

"I wish you hadn't forced my hand like that," Charles bites out between clenched teeth, and Erik remembers he's still got Charles bound up in his magnetic hold. He lessens the pressure on all the bits of metal on and inside Charles' person, and Charles relaxes visibly.

"You could have just stopped me instead of manipulating all these people," Erik points out.

"That's the difference between you and I." Charles opens his eyes, blue and defiant. "I won't use overt force if there's another option."

"Oh, my dear Charles." Erik places a kiss on his temple, an offering to the power that lies there. "Do you not think that perhaps you took the more pleasurable route because it's what you _want_? What you _deserve_?"

"We don't have time for this," Charles says, but it's a weak protest, and his mouth is hovering open and pink mere millimeters from Erik's.

"How long can you maintain the illusion in these humans' minds?" Erik asks. "I'd say we have plenty of time."

They kiss again, long and slow, and this time Charles groans into it. A thrill runs down the middle of Erik's spine; he'd imagined what Charles would be like if he ever let go enough to allow himself this, and the reality was so far surpassing the fantasy. Charles is warm and guiding, touching Erik's hands and arms, leading him to where he should be: a palm on Charle's hip, another cupping the back of his brilliant head. Clever thin fingers running through Erik's hair, trailing down his neck to rest flat against his chest above his beating heart.

A man in a pinstriped suit brushes by them, stumbling a little. He glares at the cracked pavement under their feet, convinced he'd been tripped up by a misstep of some kind. Erik looks right into the man's oblivious face as he walks on, and the knowledge that they can do anything here in front of all these humans with impunity ignites his blood.

"Need you," he growls against Charles' neck, nipping the white skin there.

"N-not here," Charles stutters. His cheeks are flushed and his breath comes in puffs of cool mist. "The hotel is only—"

Erik ignores him, falling to his knees on the ground and pawing at the front of Charles' trousers. The metal zipper lowers with no problems, of course, but the buttons are ivory and slip in Erik's shaking fingers.

"Erik! Don't!" But Charles is already reaching behind himself with one hand, catching himself against one of the large gray boulders that line the pond's edge.

Erik makes love like animals do, pressing his face between Charles' spread legs, inhaling deeply and rubbing his chin along his thigh, mouthing at the growing bulge underneath the cotton of Charles' briefs. Being with another man isn't as shocking to Charles as the unselfconscious affections of _this_ man, who, at other times and places, has seemed so painfully unsure of himself. His eyelids flutter as Erik peels down his briefs and laps at the head of his cock like a cat.

Charles is leaning back heavily on the stone, trying with all his power to hold together the illusion for the park-goers. But Erik does something very clever with his fingertips at the underside of his shaft; Charles gasps at the sensation, his eyes blinking open to stare over Erik's bobbing head and fastening on a young woman who is staring at them, a feather-duster of a gloved hand covering her shocked mouth.

Charles gapes at her for a long moment, his hands tightening helplessly on Erik's shoulders. "Erik, stop, I can't concentrate like this!"

Erik continues, heedless or perhaps just too wrapped up in his task to hear.

The woman's head whips around, and Charles recognizes the moment she spots a uniformed policeman down the path. She takes a step in his direction, but Charles reaches out with his thoughts and stops her in her tracks. Her mind is a jumble of thoughts besides the surface emotions of surprise and disgust; there is also fear that she is going mad, indignation that no one else is doing anything to stop the barbarous display in front of her, and somewhere, very deep down, a burning lust at the sight.

 _You should go home_ , Charles tells her. _You haven't seen anything out of the ordinary._

The woman blinks, checks her wristwatch, and totters down the path. She passes by Charles and Erik, completely unaware. Charles breathes a sigh of relief.

"I'm serious," he tells Erik. "I won't be able to keep this up for much longer." The weight of all these gazes, all these minds around them, are becoming too much for Charles.

"Then I suppose," Erik pauses for a long lick, "I shall have to finish up quickly." He swallows Charles to the root, his nose tickling the hairs at the base of his cock, his throat working furiously.

Charles can feel the last shreds of his concentration crumbling; he knows he won't be able to hold on when he goes over the edge. He tries to tell Erik this, tries to convey the danger they're in, but the only sounds he can produce are wordless. He falls back into projecting his thoughts to Erik, but they're all mixed up, one running counter to another: _Stop! Don't stop. Oh god, oh Erik, I hate this about you; I love this, love this about you. I can't—I can't not—_

One by one, like a string of defective Christmas lights, the people in the park turn to watch Erik sucking Charles' cock, realization passing over their faces in fits and starts. Charles sees all the varied reactions, every single one, as he loses control over them. It's humiliating to be splayed out like this in front of all these strangers, but it also produces a surge of dark want in the pit of his stomach. And that feeling—combined with the shocked gazes of fifty-three New Yorkers—sends Charles over the edge.

Erik drinks it down without complaint, letting go only to lick the last beaded drop from the head. He looks up at Charles with a soft, self-satisfied smirk. "I daresay you enjoyed that."

The policeman is approaching, baton drawn. Charles watches him over Erik's shoulder, his eyes widening. He's panting for air, trying desperately to collect his thoughts. Erik still hasn't noticed the danger, and he's afraid what Erik might do to defend himself, so he pushes the last vestiges of lazy contentment from his mind and grabs hold of all the on-lookers.

They all go blank like the faces of dolls. The policeman replaces his baton in his belt. They all drift away, shaking their heads as if waking from a dream. Erik, meanwhile, is tucking Charles' shirttails back into his trousers and putting him to rights.

Charles is trembling like the red leaves rattling to the ground around them. "Erik," he says carefully, "we can never do that again. Not ever." He regains his footing carefully.

"But now I know how much you enjoy it," his friends says, standing at full height once more. "The only way to change that is to take away a piece of my memory." He taps a finger against Charles' forehead. "Your choice. But I don't think you'll ever have the—"

Charles places a hand on the side of Erik's face.

Erik stops. Blinks. His eyes cloud and then clear again. Charles removes his hand, the fingers curling into a fist at his side.

"I'm sorry, Charles," Erik says finally. "What were we discussing?"

There is a watery film building in Charles' eyes, and his breathing seems rather irregular.

"My dear friend," Erik says, putting a hand on his elbow, "the chill is really affecting you, isn't it? Let's go back to the room, yes?"

"Yes," Charles says in a dry voice. "All of a sudden I feel very unwell."

  
fin.

  


>   
> This was my first First Class fic, and my first X-Men fic ever so I hope you enjoyed it! I've always love, love, loved the X-Men comics and I really dug the First Class movie. So when I saw this prompt on my kink_bingo card, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
> 
> Charles wouldn't cooperate, though. I originally had a plan to make Charles snap and dubconnily force Erik into putting on a little public performance, but I just couldn't get him to that point. So it turned into Erik dubconnily sexing up Charles instead. WELP. Them's the breaks.
> 
> I'd like to try writing this pairing again because I think it's a super-interesting pair, so please any comments or crit would be welcome!  
> 

  



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